FORMER Middlesbrough defender Colin Cooper was named Hartlepool United's new manager yesterday and then immediately outlined a desire to bring the good times back to Victoria Park with help from around the region.

The 46-year-old, who has quit his role as Boro's Under-18s coach to take on the role, has agreed to become the club's sixth permanent manager in the last four and a half years and has named another Riverside old boy Craig Hignett as his assistant.

Cooper verbally agreed to take over from John Hughes, sacked on May 9 along with right-hand man Micky Barron, the position last week but it was only yesterday when it was officially confirmed.

And he has already started work on the rebuilding process, after inheriting a squad of players still hurting from relegation to League Two after spending the majority of a dreadful campaign.

Cooper, who made more than 600 appearances during a 20-year playing career before retiring to form part of Gareth Southgate's first backroom team at the Riverside in 2006, has already been in touch with Middlesbrough, Sunderland and Newcastle to improve relations - and hopes football fans from around the region will help too.

He said: "Despite all the clubs having their own loyalties, I am a real fan of North-East football, I have no qualms about that and I just want North-East football to do well.

"It has been a difficult time for the Hartlepool fans. Can we make Hartlepool everybody's other team? I have connections throughout the region and we want to make Hartlepool an exciting football team to come to watch and support."

Cooper remembered the day in 1986 when he was part of a Middlesbrough team which had to play at Hartlepool because the gates had been locked at Ayresome Park during liquidation.

"I see a certain similarity to Middlesbrough in 1986 to Hartlepool now," said the Trimdon-raised former England international. "We need to create a bubble where it is us against the rest of the world, I want the North-East to come in to that.

"Hartlepool supported Middlesbrough in a time of trouble. Middlesbrough will do everything they can to support us I'm sure, as will Sunderland and Newcastle, who are willing to help us. We have ideas of how we want to play but we will need some help from the North-East's big boys."

Cooper has been in the frame on a couple of occasions in the past for the Hartlepool job, only for chairman Ken Hodcroft to opt for Neale Cooper in December 2011 and then Hughes 11 months later.

But after a variety of coaching roles at Middlesbrough and Bradford - two clubs where he also had brief spells as caretaker manager - he does not feel like he is going in to his first frontline manager's job blind.

"I am not a young naïve person coming in," Cooper told the club's official website. "I have been wanting to do this for an awful long time. I am mid-40s, so I don't see myself as a fresh faced, young manager …

He added: "I'm thrilled. It's no secret I have been trying to get in to this side of things for quite a while. I can only thank Hartlepool for giving me that opportunity.

"I see it as hopefully a chance, after a negative time for the club, for myself and Craig to springboard the club to get some success. It's a cracking little club."

One of the first tasks the new managerial team will have to sort is the future of experienced striker Steve Howard. He is the club's highest paid player and still has a year on his contract after spending the back end of last season on loan at Sheffield Wednesday.

There is room to bring a few new signings in, although if Howard was to move on permanently then Cooper could be able to bring in a number of others.

"The work is ongoing. There is more done last minute than ever these days," said Cooper. "We will do our best to get players in very quickly. It's not ideal, but we might have to have additions in the last couple of weeks of pre-season. As a club we have to make the town of Hartlepool proud to have us as a football club."

He chose not to make any wild predictions about next season, but did admit the first challenge - once he has returned from climbing Mount Kilimanjaro for charity with Hignett early next month - will be to lift a group scarred by relegation.

"Everyone would accept Hartlepool should not have been in the position they were in," he said. "But it happened. What we have to do is dust ourselves down, it's not going to be easy.

"We have a core of players who have been through a traumatic season and we have to get that flushed out of them. Hopefully we will just bring in our ideas.

"Let's give these fans something to be excited about. Let's flush last season out of us very quickly. We have to make sure 2013-14 comes with a fresh plate. Once we move on with a few fresh additions, we want to get up and running quickly."